Disinformation, Propaganda and the Morality of Media 5.16.2024

The debt of gratitude we owe to Neil Postman is enormous. I have a young ministry candidate that I tutor, and I advised her that for the study of hermeneutics in the Post-Modern world Postman’s work is the place to start. Like many other areas of life in the 21st century, our traditional boundaries have necessarily expanded. For most of us in ministry hermeneutics meant “Biblical Hermeneutics.” As the centuries melted into one another the full consequences of development in academic social and literary theory finally made their way onto the radar screens of Biblical exegetes. Now, nearly a quarter century into the 21st, virtually everything we do in ministry is hermeneutically driven. We are never, not interpreting something. That is a primary reason I am always discussing the rules and tools for the necessary hermeneutical work that is contemporary preaching. This week we extend that discussion into the realms of disinformation, propaganda, and the morality of media. Much of this discussion was initiated by Postman’s seminal Work Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Clearly, Postman was right about the denigration of truth in our society and (though he did not put it this way) the hermeneutical imperative that should drive the Church.

Here is a quick review of the month so far:

• All Truth, regardless of its source ultimately is God’s Truth.

• Truth is not a state of mind or matter of perception. There is a real world.

Our task this week, the next necessary step in our interpretive task, is cultivating tools to help us determine when we are being lied to and the possible motivation(s) of those doing the deceiving. If we learn how to do this well, we will also be in a position to critically analyze our own work, what we preach, teach, and write to ensure that we are making valid, Biblical arguments rather than resorting to the tantalizing tricks of Post-Modern manipulation, trying to bamboozle our listeners.  The logical order for dealing with these issues is the opposite of how it is stated in the title of this essay, which is at least somewhat illustrative of the point. 

    Virtually all communication has an agenda of some kind, a lesson to be taught, a cause to promote, an enemy to defame, a villain to defang. Interpretation’s cardinal purpose is to work backward through the “text” to discern the motive or intent of the author, filmmaker, monologist, comedian, or blogger. That provides a starting point organizational structure for our inquiry. We will begin with morality first, which provides a framework for evaluating both disinformation and propaganda. 

Morality in Media

    One of the things most intriguing about Paul the Apostle is how seamlessly he moves between scriptural argument, the application of the principles of Jesus, rabbinic argument, and Hellenistic philosophy. He was truly a master communicator. In Titus, he drops this little gem: 

  

“One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”” (Titus 1:12 ESV)

Paul was making a specific point about the troubles and troublemakers that Titus might confront while ministering to the Church on Crete and he slipped in one of the most famous philosophic paradoxes of all time—the Epimenides Paradox. This is likely the earliest statement of what is also called the “liar’s paradox” commonly stated as “This statement is false” or “I am lying.”  This is a fitting prelude for questions about intent and motive in all our communications. 

    Most speakers, preachers, filmmakers, songwriters, monologists, weather men, performance artists, clowns, or essayists will not begin with a disclaimer regarding their intent. We each begin the interpretive process using the basic interrogatory questions to discern what the—let’s use the terms creative and creator since they are in vogue—the creator is up to. Certain genres come with ground rules about how they will address us. For example, a Crime Novel may not intentionally deceive you but will hide information and try to be secretive. In that genre, according to its purpose, those creative acts are not considered immoral or amoral. On the other hand, if a newspaper article keeps a secret, if a researcher withholds significant data, or if a raunchy video on Tic-tac lies about the age of the victim, it is immoral, the creator has violated the acceptable rules of the medium in which he/she is working.

Every creator has some kind of moral code. It may be Christian or heathen. It may be complex or simple. It may be a foreseeable result of trauma or a deliberate departure from normal ethical standards. Every creator is trying to say something and the thing they are trying to say—in one way or another discloses not only their intellect, creative energy, and vision—it also discloses their “soul.” Their moral core. 

    Sometimes this moral vision will be implicit, maybe nearly invisible. It might even be unacknowledged by the artist, arising from depths of pain or guilt impossible to articulate. But it’s still there. For others, this moral vision is the first thing we encounter. The goal of some creators is a prolonged act of destruction or projected disillusionment. (There is nothing wrong with being disillusioned, it is making it the foundation of personal morality that is immoral). 

    The purpose of this hermeneutic step is not to foster skepticism or doubt, rather it is a reminder that the same words can be either Joel’s plowshares or Micah’s swords. Any time humans are involved we must be wary of moral motivation. This is a characteristic we all share because the power of the Image has been tarnished by the fall. 

Propaganda

    So, if no media is “neutral” a central interpretive task is determining the “why” of the creator’s “what”. When I preach, the act is in itself (and I know some will flinch at this term) propagandistic. It is not neutral. I am not only teaching information regarding some specific dimension of the Christian faith, but I am also advocating for it. My task is to advance the Christian faith by discipling the congregation through accurately and systematically teaching the Scriptures. They know it, I know it and it is expected. 

When we interpret various messages from the culture, we need to discern what motivates the messenger. For whom are they shilling? What is the agenda? To what end or for whom is this message propaganda? 

In our polarized culture we often mistake specific kinds of content or ideological markers for the actual reason a blogger, essayist, journalist, singer, or performer is doing what they do. Liberal and conservative are easy labels to apply, but advocating for these political positions is not the motivation-the purpose of the propaganda. They are the means to the end. 

So, what are the motivation(s)? I will only focus on three because they are almost always in play, and everything else is derived from them. 

1. Entertainment.

2. Power.

3. Money. 

To which you say, “Surely, it’s more than that? Our motives are pure, theirs are malicious, salacious, or ridiculous!” Nope. The arguments, the stand-offs, the decontextualized photographs, the name-calling, the haranguing, the shouting, the diminution; all the stuff of Post-Modern media culture is designed to keep the clicks coming which is all about entertaining, obligating, and fleecing people. Not Google News, but GOOGLE news…with the obligatory advertising. Facebook is not for making or keeping friends but for monetizing friends. The newest threat, AI in the form of agents, is just another attempt to control the conversation (exert power) moving us through the maze. 

    What should we do? Stop using the tools available to us? No. The goal is to understand what motivates the people who publish and the creatives who contribute. What do they want, and how immorally will they act to acquire distract, pressure, or monetize us? We used to worry that propaganda's effect would dull our intellect. In the Post-Modern world propaganda’s goal is our soul. Distraction, domination, and dollars are the currencies of the new Media empires. 

Disinformation.

    Those who wish to deceive us will not likely disclose their motivation. Those who propagandize us for some form of profit will try to maintain the illusion of freedom. This brings us to the third threat which sound hermeneutical practices can blunt; disinformation. 

    Disinformation is not merely a matter of content but of context.  The text that surrounds a statement defines how that statement is understood. The difference between lying and just being plain wrong is hiding one’s intent and then using both truth and falsehood to get what one wants. This is not communication as the sharing of information but communication as the bullying use of power. And I don’t care whose side you are on. If you hide your motive and misrepresent the truth it is immoral, and I don’t care whether or not you are doing so to advance your understanding of the Christian faith. It is wrong, it is immoral, and it will be judged. 

    There are many forms of misinformation. I have already alluded to context-switching. There is also outright lying. Withholding details. Misusing statistics and data-driven analysis. Swapping foreground and background information. Picking and choosing various interpretations of the same basic facts. False modesty. False pride. Every logical fallacy and vaudeville magic trick you can imagine. If none of that works…flood the zone with so much manure that it is impossible to discover the truth. 

    This can be an exhausting process for those who are interested in discovering and communicating the truth. Christians are not exempt from this entire process. All of us are fallen and one of the vulnerabilities of Christians is that we want to think that there is no way that another believer would lie to me, deflect the truth, hide her motivation, or tell me the big lie to profit from me, dominate me, or distract me. This is not the case. And even those who may act without ill intent may fall into strategies and techniques which do not honor Christ

Final word

    Hermeneutical thinking is a critical act. The Biblical term is discernment. Discernment requires the active, informed use of our critical faculties. Discernment is a matter of Judgement. 

“But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:14 ESV)

    Discernment requires solid food. Discernment requires training. Discernment requires constant practice. Discernment is both the moral process of determining good from evil and the intellectual process of determining right from wrong.  For a Disciple of Jesus, practicing Hermeneutics means a focused process of examining and assimilating all information, subordinating it to the cause of Christ. Weighing what is helpful from what is hurtful. We use these tools in considering what can be done to equip the Church for our work of witness in the distracted, distorted culture into which we are called to bear the light of Christ